Seattle NHL Team Brand Might Involve Local Indigenous Imagery

SEATTLE, WA - On Sunday afternoon, football fans packed Arrowhead Stadium outside Kansas City, Missouri, to watch the Chiefs play the Baltimore Ravens. And like countless Chiefs games before, they participated in a ritual called the "Tomahawk Chop," where fans move their right arm in a chopping motion while chanting.

To the Chiefs fans - and Redskins, Blackhawks, Braves, and Indians fans - that ritual might be harmless fun, and, they might argue, a way of showing how much they like Native American culture. But those types of fan rituals are seen as increasingly problematic.

In picking a name and logo for the new Seattle NHL team, the owners might be tempted to use either words or images associated with local tribes. If the owners do, indigenous artists and scholars say, the team must do so with care and include indigenous people in the process.

In fact, Seattle's NHL team could be the first pro team to design a logo created by an actual indigenous person.

So far, no name has been chosen for the Seattle team. In January, a Detroit hockey blog revealed that the Oak View Group, the team's owner, had reserved website domain names for 13 possible team names. Some include words or imagery that borrow from local tribes: the Seattle Rainiers; the Seattle Sockeyes; and the Seattle Totems among them.

Louie Gong, a Nooksack tribal member and contemporary Coast Salish artist in Seattle, said the team owners contacted him recently about the naming process. Although they did not talk about designing an actual logo, Gong was encouraged that the team took that step.

One of the main problems with using indigenous imagery is authenticity, Gong said. Much of the indigenous art around Seattle - including the Seahawks logo - was modeled after Northwest Coast tribal art. Those tribes, living along the coasts of Alaska and British Columbia, had very different styles from Salish tribes in modern day Puget Sound.

But in the late 1800s, Northwest Coast art was sought after by upper-class Seattleites.

"Our current ideas about who the indigenous are were skewed by business interests that have controlled the indigenous branding of Seattle," Gong said.

Infamously, a group of businessmen stole a totem pole from Tlingit village in Alaska, later planting it in Pioneer Square. The totem pole became a major symbol in Seattle, and set off a kind of race to erect bigger and better totem poles in cities around the region.

"Totem poles are thought of as symbols of Seattle by many residents and visitors, but, in fact, the indigenous people of Washington state, the Coast Salish peoples, did not traditionally carve totems," the Burke Museum notes in a history of local totem poles.

The region also has a history of using indigenous images without input from actual indigenous people.

Seattle's seal, a profile of Chief Seattle, is based on a cast of a sculpture by artist James A. Wehn. Although Wehn is renowned for his sculptures of Native Americans, Wehn was white. He was born in Indianapolis in 1882 and his parents were German immigrants, according to the city office of Arts and Culture.

The stylized version of the seal used on the city flag and website was designed in the 1990s by former Councilman Paul Kraabel.

The Western Hockey League Seattle Thunderbirds logo includes images that look, Gong said, like a takeoff on Northwest Coast art. The team couldn't confirm whether the designer was native, but according to team history, the owner seems to have had the most input on the Thunderbirds logo.

"[Team owner Earl] Hale made suggestions during the process, the most important being that the designer come up with something similar to the Totems logo. After doing some drafting and drawing, the graphic designer created a wood carving of what would be the franchises new logo. The logo that was created is almost completely similar to the current logo for the team, with only a few minor color changes over the years," a history of the Thunderbirds logo reads.

Aside from being culturally incorrect, native logos can seriously harm indigenous people, according to Stephanie Fryberg, a psychology professor in the University of Washington American Indian Studies program. In one study, she found that American Indian students experienced "depressed state self-esteem and community worth, and fewer achievement-related possible selves" when exposed to images like Chief Wahoo, the Cleveland Indians logo.

The new NHL team could avoid that outcome easily, Fryberg said, by avoiding images that mock or imitate native people.

"Let's be attentive to the stereotypes that can cause people to mistreat and dehumanize real contemporary native people. That to me is the most important piece," Fryberg said.

Patch contacted Oak View Group multiple times about this issue. No one responded, but the story will be updated if we hear back.

Gong said there are plenty of indigenous artists in the Seattle area capable of helping brand the new NHL team. He recently completed a resdesign of the Highline College Thunderbirds branding.

If Seattle's new team works with indigenous artists, the new team logo might be the most prominent and authentic piece of Coast Salish art around.

"Seattle can set the gold standard on how cities and sports teams can align with their local indigenous communities," Gong said.

Caption: People march to TCF Bank Stadium to protest against the mascot for the Washington Redskins before the game against the Minnesota Vikings on Nov. 2, 2014 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Opponents of the Redskins name believe it's a slur that mocks Native American culture, and they want the team to change it.

Photo by Hannah Foslien/Getty Images